I think we should move it back here, and agree with the others that it's no problem paying the delta for this miscalculation, but it would be interresting to hear what you calculated and what it ended to. I'm planning to create some pcb's for my first time, and are not quite sure about how things costs and turns out, it seems cheap when playing with the price calculator at Seed's site, but it seems too cheap if I can get 10 boards of 10x10cm for only $24.90 (2 layers, thinnest board, no extra color, standard surface, no etest etc, I'm going to mold these inside some resin if everything works out)

The total for 10 count 100x100cm PCBs with red soldermask and 100% e-test is $45. Shipping would normally be $5 to $10, but I picked up $5 worth of stuff I wanted anyway to get the free shipping for orders > $50.

Out of that, I can cut 40 BPv4 boards on my band saw, which yield a cost-per-board of $1.13. Add about $1 of shipping, and the cost is $2.13 each. At a price of $4, that leaves a 'profit' per board of $1.87. So I'm not cash-out-of-pocket on this operation. But I'll have to cut 40 boards apart, and clean up the edges, and that will take a couple of hours, esp. if I try to round all the corners. I'll probably mess up a few of them -- the cuts on this one are trickier than usual, since I can't just go all the way from one side of the board to the other, since they're all kind of overlapping. Plus I have to get all the shipping together, and go to the post office to send the stuff internationally, sent to a bunch of different folks with different address formats and with unhelpful postal clerks.

So I'm not cash-out-of-pocket, and there isn't a shortfall, but next time I'll probably ask for $5 instead of $4, to be a sufficient inducement to cover the time involved, and I'll probably just order the boards and hawk any extras, rather than trying to arrange a pre-order group buy.

Since this is an act of community participation, and not a profit-making venture, I am not at all sore about it (I could always have just cancelled the order before collecting any money for the boards). But I'll think twice about it next time. Ian's blog analysis about selling boards in the PCB store was spot-on -- it ultimately isn't the price-per-pcb that drives the feasibility of an operation like this.

Schazamp, I have no trouble paying $5 for board. Still a big favour for me. Cutting all those boards, well, it's a hell of work, at least for me. I did something similar, cutting the boards with a Dremel, and being way less boards and I ended... well, I have no idea of how to say it in english, but it is not pretty ;) So, as I said, have no trouble with it, just put the price you think it's ok.

I understand if other folks think different, but as I said, that seems reasonable for me.

I sent in a payment and a delta for two boards. Please consider just cutting and shipping without sanding of edges. Smoothing the edges and rounding the corners is something that can be "crowd sourced" to the end user.

This is for partially selfish reasons-- I would hate for you to spend hours doing this and thinking the whole time that you will never do this again. I want this to be a positive experience for all parties.

* After submitting the PCB order to Seeed, the status is still 'in production', which, after about 10 days, is longer than usual. I'll wait a few more days, and then email them to ask what's up. The Maker Faire stuff may have been a disruption.

* I looked at putting together a parts order, and it's just more complex than I can handle right now, so I'm afraid I won't be able to do it.

I will post when the boards come in, and will let you each know individually when I have shipped your board. There are a few preorders who haven't paid, probably waiting on the word on the part order. I'll post a list of those remaining in a day or two.

I bet it is the holiday. They were closed for 1 week, but many factories close for 2 weeks for the major yearly holiday (traditionally, I read the .cn govt is trying to undo this to increase harmony with other countries schedules) . It is when many Western Chinese workers make a yearly trip from cities to visit family in the country. It has been called the biggest migration of humans on the planet, there's movies about it and stuff.

All this is just to say: first two weeks of October in China? Things are moving REAL slow. Two weeks of Christmas day slow. We just ignore it and concentrate on development in October now :) You'll see a flood of new DP stuff when Seeed gets back and backlogs are cleared.

I've just been informed the order has shipped with tracking number: RT150887095HK, though I seldom find those numbers actually useful for much.

According to my records, the following users have reserved a PCB or two, but have yet to pay. If you have paid, but your name is on the list, it's because I have no foolproof way of correlating your real name with your forum username, so please PM me and help me make the connection.